


Immersion

by typhe



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Creampie, LHM, Light Bondage, M/M, Magical Healing Cock, Orgy, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 06:02:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18805201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typhe/pseuds/typhe
Summary: Vanyel in the middle of a Tayledras orgy.





	Immersion

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn't fit in canon - I wrote it after _Scavenger_ but who cares: Van & Stef are alive and in k'Treva Vale together and getting their rocks off, no context necessary.
> 
> There is a bit near the end where Van talks about rape, but otherwise, this is just cocks. Major thanks to macabre_monkey, from whom I borrowed Ambermoon's cock [(see her kink series for more)](https://archiveofourown.org/series/13029).

I admit that sometimes I'll walk into a room and wonder who in it I might gravitate to if it weren't for Vanyel; among the Tayledras, it's been a challenge. There aren't really any rooms, for a start; it's more like a vast garden, a forest, both, and people gather at waterfalls and magically warmed pools and clearings between the trees. Tonight it's the latter, dozens of the k'Treva clan out under the stars, near all of them strangers to me, and I'm trying not to feel uncomfortable among them, trying not to cling too much to Vanyel, or to beg him tiresomely for more murmured translations of those foreign words that slosh against against my ears like water without meaning anything. I do know a few of the more important ones now - hello, yes, no, breakfast, bird, star, birdshit, goodbye - but there's none of the k'Treva that I can really _talk_ to except Brightstar and his fathers. A few of them know some Tradespeak, which I speak rather better than Van does, but Starwind's the only one who's fluent in it.

So I can only understand the party by watching. Their fashions and proprieties dazzle me - shockingly open, and yet intensely private, as if each of them is a world unto themself. From what Van and Brightstar tell me I don't think they ever talk much about who's dilly-dallying with who, but they'll kiss shamelessly in the middle of a party, men and women and women and men and men, and those few fascinating neither-nors, neck deep in a warm pool in groups of three or four, golden-wet skin and feathers floating free from their hair. They are all beautiful. Ageless mages, strong and scarred scouts, and it's summer and they've so little modesty. They're the same about people's minds, which bothered me at first, until I realised how utterly unjudgemental they were about my most peculiar thoughts.

And one of them has caught my eye tonight, because he is striking, and unusual, even among the Tayledras. His white hair is cut short against his neck; I've not seen any other mage do that. He's wearing a loose robe of a blue so pale I can see his dark nipples straight through the silk - or I thought I did until the man above him touches him, brushes his solid, strong fingers down that golden neck and over his chest, slipping his clothing aside like he had the right, among all those people - and there's a dark bruise on his chest, like a ripe cherry. Like a prize. And the _way_ they are together...it makes me ache, even with Van leaning on my arm.

I nudge Van, wondering if he's noticed the man - he's not completely immune - and Van gestures to the taller, brown-haired man who curls over my unknown sweetheart, sat atop a stump with his knees spread, like some lord above a retainer, his lover looking up to him with a self-assured adoration. There are no lords or retainers here, so it's mimicry with no object, it's something else entirely. "That's Ambermoon," Van whispers. _Oh._ Van has mentioned Ambermoon. Ambermoon takes a piece of fruit from a bowl nearby, pries its rind away with his fingernails, and reaches down to slip a piece of it between the lips of his kneeling, bruised lover.

I'm insensible. I can't tell if I'm overcome by worship or jealousy. Van's arm quivers under my hand. 

I look back at him and he offers me that rare, private smile that knows all my sins and delights in them. The one I was so afraid I'd never see again. For a year I never asked for more than he's dared himself to offer, those occasional stolen hours, candles doused, bedcurtains drawn, and his flickering presence beside me afterwards - and that smile is like morning and shutters flung wide. He catches Ambermoon's eyes, and something slips through the air between them - some _mischief_ , and Van glances at the man with the short hair, and Ambermoon glances at me, and I sense his grandiose, carnal _approval_ and I bask in it, returning the stranger's smile with my best feigned mutual understanding. I hope his beautiful lover enjoys this same feeling - he certainly deserves it.

Van wraps his arm around me and turns his back on the clearing, leading me away from their debauchery. Hopefully toward mine. He steps between two trees, on a stone path I barely noticed. He has a much better eye for these routes hidden in the verdance of the Vale. He leads me through a curtain of willow leaves, woven through with some purple-flowered vine. Out of sight, he pulls me tight against him and kisses me.

He wants me, among all these lovely men he offers his desire to me and it's as hot as a furnace in my brain. Gods, I love when Van gets this needy, and I don't mind that looking at a living moment of his past was part of that. I slip a hand down his body, toying with his erection through his loose breeches. He is so ready, beyond ready. "Come on," he murmurs, smiling with impatience. We're deep in the shadows, but I can see the path heading onward, between densely packed trees. There's another pool somewhere ahead of us - I can see a glint of magelight flickering against the water -

Magelights don't flicker. I hear a man laugh, and Vanyel stops in his tracks so fast that I walk into him.

"Hello," calls a rich, deep voice, and then some other Tayledras words I don't understand, but which certainly _sound_ more like a hearty welcome than a response to an awkward interruption. I peek around Van's shoulder and see the speaker, sprawled on his back on a bed of moss with his legs knee-deep in the water.

He's completely naked, but that barely registers given that there's someone else with their legs stretched out on the surface of the pool and their hands and lips around the sprawling man's cock.

"Uh, hello," I blurt, eager to demonstrate that I know how to return a greeting like a civilised human while the man I greet breathes out a great sigh of pleasure and Van's ears turn red to the tips - but - he's not backing away? I could be wrong, but he's looking less like he's stumbled somewhere he shouldn't than like he's got caught in a conversation he can't politely leave even though he's not even said a word yet?

He looks around, and back behind us, and whispers the word for birdshit before calling out a reply and pointing to a clutch of feathers hanging from a tree along the path - a bundle with some tied quilltip-up, some down. "What is that?" I murmur.

"I didn't see it at first," Van tells me. "They put it there to...invite more company."

Oh my gods.

You really have to know where to go in Haven's back alleys for that, and frankly, I am quite sure that Vanyel doesn't, but here he knows people who just pluck the nearest bird and tie the refuse to trees when they want some highly extroverted fun? "I'm in," I reply on a flippant, heady impulse then slap my hand to my mouth. I don't know how he'll take my not-not-joking. He's healing, for hells' sakes - he still tenses up on me sometimes and that's just _me_ , not multiple inviting strangers. Right now, he's not moving at all, just returning the inviting stares (stares, the man in the water has looked up at us though still works one hand smoothly over his lover's penis) with wide eyes.

Wait a moment. "Have you, uh, done this before?"

Van spares me an evasive glance, and says something to them in Tayledras that sounds polite and forthcoming. The sprawling man replies lackadaisically. I wish I could understand, or even just know his name and his lover's - but I'll take the thrill of not knowing, of seeing a stranger's cock slip so sweetly into a stranger's mouth and gods, I'm so hard I could probably come if Van breathed on me. Van, who _never told me that things like this happen here._

"I haven't. But I thought about it," he admits, and he sinks gracefully to the earth beside the water, and pulls his jerkin over his head in one quick motion. "I asked if we could stay and, watch," he whispers.

I open the ties of my robe and let it slip to the ground with me, and as I settle behind him wrap my arms about his bare chest. "What did you think about, exactly? What did you want them to do with you?"

Van's breath strains under the press of my forearms. He probably won't tell me. I've rarely been able to coax him to share his fantasies. That's not the point, I just want him to think about it. He leans his head back against me and shudders. The man in the water favours us with a bright smile and returns to his work - showier than before, enjoying his audience. His deep brown hair trails behind him in the clear water, and I find myself wishing I had a good enough angle to see - well - at the very least his ass is beautiful, rising from the surface of the pool while he sucks off his lover. It's all so gods damned intentional. His comfort in his own beauty is obscene, it's that shameless idolatry that the priests warn will send all us shaych boys to the hells - leaning on one elbow at the side of the pool, his lover stroking long fingers through the fine hair at his scalp. This stranger _wants_ me and Van to see all this, wants us to want to see _more_ , and do more than see. 

I kiss Van at the red tip of one ear and reach a finger under his belt, and he shrugs me aside to unknot it. "Alright," he murmurs, and I drop gentle kisses on his jaw and his cheeks. I can feel resolve beneath his wants and his wariness - he won't back down from this. If touching me and watching them is as far as he's willing to go, that's fine - he fought so long to remember that he deserves love and pleasure, and I suddenly feel like I'm holding a shade of his old self - the one I held profanely in my arms for a handful of months long ago, two years ago, before we lost that innocence we'd no idea we had.

He kicks off his breeches, and I pull him back against me, one hand tight around his chest, the other tracing up the inside of his thigh. "Van," I whisper. "I would be thrilled to see you have everything you want from them." He gasps, and I kiss the back of his neck, sealing that affirmation with my tonguetip, trying to show him that nothing could make me more satisfied than to see him live out all of his fantasies, because he is mine no matter what. _I don't care who else he wants._

The dark-haired man looks up at us and says a word to his lover, who raises into a crouch with a feline languor. His cock is hard, unsatisfied and unhurried; he looks so easy to touch, and it's not _wanting_ to so much as knowing I _could_ , that he'd like it if I would. I think he's asking Van a question, or making an offer? He adds a few more words that sound lyrical and welcoming - I catch the word for 'star'. His partner turns to us, planting his elbows at the edge of the water with dark hair trailing over them as if he were some Evendim merbeast. "He is Summerstorm," he says, in Tradespeak. "I am Eveningstar."

Summerstorm reaches for Eveningstar's hair and produces a bedraggled feather - grey with a bright blue tip. Some showy bird. He laughs. He smooths out its tip and crouches to offer it to Vanyel in the palm of his hand.

I feel so consumed with carnal want but with my last shred of thought I find myself wondering at this piece of etiquette; how Van hesitates, how he closes his hand over Summerstorm's. There's such language in the way he does it - I'd assumed it was a straightforward yes or no thing, but the way Van moves, how his other hand holds mine tightly, the way Summerstorm reaches to weave the blue-tipped feather deftly into Van's hair, slipping it into a braid that his son lovingly wove into his hair this morning - it's a moment, it's conditional, it's a tiny part of a story. And I want to see it so badly. I feel like a fire catching, burning without thought of eternity. I let the flames take that wild urge I have to protect him, because seeing another man touch him, even so gently, rouses that in me, to my surprise. I let myself feel it, like a whisper over another self - marvelling that Van is _letting_ me feel it, sharing his descent into fantasy. Oh gods, I can feel how much he wants to be touched.

Does that feather count for both of them? And both of us? I think so, because Eveningstar is hauling himself from the pool and oh now I see it and it's thick and hard, perfect above his water-dappled thighs. He smirks at my scrutiny, and reaches for me boldly. I take his hand and draw him near, til he kneels beside me with his eyes inviting - gods, he knows _exactly_ how beautiful he is. I feel dreamlike, touching him, after years of no one but Vanyel, and I kiss him with as much curiosity as attraction, wondering if I remember what it feels like to kiss a man just because I can.

I don't, but I still enjoy it. It feels strange, warm and liquid but also flat and detached in a way that I can't remember ever noticing back before Vanyel - kissing so fiercely with my hands roaming over Eveningstar's wet, golden body, curled into his hair, tracing the sculpture of his strong back, and as badly as I want to fuck him, the part of this that used to feel triumphant to me isn't here. I pull him down with me and I find myself back pressed to back with Vanyel on the earth, with one of Summerstorm's knees brushing my hip and that whole sense of his body against Van's searing into my mind. He murmurs a few words to Vanyel - another question, and I'd guess it's that matter men always make of what role they like - I must ask him to teach me all those words. When Van replies, I don't know if it's just the foreignness of his speech but _he_ seems more the performer than I'm used to from him in bed.

Summerstorm reaches for Eveningstar, says two words - and Eveningstar sighs and rolls away from me, reaching for what appears to be his own discarded clothing. Do all Tayledras carry that kind of salve everywhere or is it only when they plan to have outdoor sex? He reaches to pass it to Summerstorm - then pulls his hand back playfully, shoving at his lover and laughing. 

Van's hand finds mine, and his thumb weaves a relaxed circle on my palm. "He says Summerstorm makes him do everything -" he began, but Eveningstar cuts him off with a kiss, leaving me to understand by watching - and touching - I seize a handful of Eveningstar's beautiful ass, and he moves delightfully under my grip. He relinquishes Van's lips, and slides down his body, til he lies between his spread legs, smirking like a fanged cat. I don't know which of them I envy more right now. I've only ever dreamed of seeing this. Being lifebonded is so strange - I feel so involved and full of desire just by being near them and somehow all my body wants is to see Van get what he's dreamed of.

And Summerstorm seems to know his place in his lover's obscene routine, reaching down to tease Van's cock as Eveningstar works the salve into him. Van's head is tipped back, his eyes wild with want and anticipation. "Hey," I murmur, and I slide beside him, kissing him lightly. "Could we...?" It's not the easiest to explain, but he sits half upright to let me slip behind him, wrapping him in my arms while Eveningstar works, and Summerstorm toys with Vanyel in passion - kissing his collarbone, his nipples, my lips, and Van reaches almost shyly to touch the head of his cock.

Eveningstar speaks, and touches Van at the hip. Whatever he said sounded downright _sultry_ , and Van nods and turns above me. Oh, I like this. He kisses me, wide-eyed and as excited as I've ever seen him, and I take his cock in my hand, teasing him as Eveningstar slides into him. I watch Van's eyes slip closed as they always do in that moment of pure _surrender_ that isn't giving up anything at all - he never seems stronger than at this moment, and now for a _stranger_ \- I'm shocked how far this has gone and it's so arousing I might come just looking at his face. But Eveningstar is moving, deeper into Van and back again, and that rhythm is consuming me through flesh and bond. Van moans into my shoulder, and I just give up and hold him, enjoying how he shifts over me with every stroke, brushing against my cock til I feel taut as a drawn bowspring. I never knew I could feel this - that feeling of Van's deep love of penetration without me being the one who's _doing_ it, and his eyes blink open briefly, staring at me with equal wonder.

Eveningstar cries out, shuddering over him.

Van feels fire-warm, radiant in my arms. Oh gods, and I hadn't thought on it, and maybe they don't even know. He has the Gift of Empathy. It is _never_ better than when he's looking at me like I gave him the greatest favour imaginable because _he_ just brought _me_ off. No wonder he's dreamed about...gods...

He's sprawled out blissfully in my arms, Eveningstar curled beside us. Summerstorm crouches over us, touching his thumb to Van's lips. Gods, he is _not_ subtle. Van grins, and turns to me with a look I know very well indeed. I gather Eveningstar got the gist of it too, because he's laughing and making an obscene hand gesture that transcends all language. So help me, I slap the man across his beautiful ass and he only laughs harder but I don't care, I take Van by the hips as he rolls up on his knees to kiss Summerstorm's lovely thick cock, and oh gods, there's another man's come beading at his entrance and when I touch a finger to him he opens around its tip. Oh my gods this is so filthy. I haven't done anything like this since I was seventeen and that it's with _Van_ is beyond my imagination.

I grab the salve with shaking hands and endure Eveningstar's amusement til I am ready to slide home inside Van's body, and it takes only one quick movement. I'm all the way inside him and he is so hot around me, so easy, slick and blissful from _someone else_. I can move in him in just the way he likes and he gives a muffled cry around Summerstorm's cock - oh gods - and in all my being I can feel how much he wants this. He _wants_ to suck someone off while I fuck him. Summerstorm has a hand to his jaw, patient and murmuring with delight - because Van is good at this, he's fervent, he cares how his partner feels, I bet he's closed his eyes - and I owe it to him to fuck him as hard as he wants it while he works. He's so open I can pull back all but my head from him and let him take my full length again every time. I keep a rhythm that might drive him mad with pleasure, and I feel his whole body getting tenser, nearer, tightening around me. And it's not just me; for a moment my eyes catch Summerstorm's, dark blue and tight with escalating pleasure. He's close, I can see it in the tension of his body, see what Van is doing to him - _my_ Van, my immaculate, filthy, beloved one.

 _Do it_ , I think, wondering if Summerstorm hears me. I want to see it, to feel it. I want his come in Van's mouth.

Summerstorm arches his back and shudders, gasping, and Van quivers under me with the force of that sweet shock of joy. 

Oh gods, I wonder how he's never done this before. I also know exactly why he hasn't. He feels alive and ecstatic and edged by a thicket of nerves, like every touch has been a gamble. I slide from him and he turns to kiss me. _He tastes like someone else_ and I feel utterly profane for liking that, wanting that, _and he knows it_. I wonder how I'd most like to make him come. It should feel pretty spectacular.

What if it's not up to me?

The willow tree behind us stirs, and Eveningstar sits straight up and calls a greeting. I know before I look up, or maybe it's Van who knows, who expected to see Ambermoon with his arm wrapped tight around his lover's waist, glancing down at Van with a smile too sincere to be called a smirk, and Vanyel _blushes_ as if somehow after two men came in him he still has some shame left. He knows exactly what a state he's in, and Ambermoon looks _intrigued_.

They saw us take this path. Maybe they waited on purpose, or maybe from distraction - Ambermoon's leather jerkin hangs loose, and his lover's robe has fallen from his shoulders. I think Ambermoon is asking if he's joined us too late - Van replies a little breathlessly. I feel an odd sensation of Van's sexual locus shifting; Summerstorm and Eveningstar are just men, but Ambermoon is Ambermoon, and was wellspring of certain pleasures I have drunk deep of. And that boy - I don't know why I'd think of him as such, he seems nothing of the kind, I'm awful at placing Tayledras by age but I would guess that he's older than Vanyel, though with different wear and tear. His robe hangs over his elbows, shameless of the bruises near his nipples and at his neck. Maybe it's just the shape of his face, a perfect heart set with pale, milky blue eyes, innocent but for his wily smile and his desecrated body. There's a feather in a short braid over one ear, white and shimmering like the one Moondance wears.

I can barely tear my eyes from him. I want him, I appreciate him, I don't need him, I am not out collecting men for validation any more, and if he walked away now I wouldn't care, but this is a strange place to be with Van in my arms and my cock so, so hard already. I drop a gentle kiss on Van's temple, holding that precious sense of him as close as I can. I can feel his reaction so keenly - he's not jealous, but - this is uncharted for us. And he wants Ambermoon, for old times' sake or to complete this fantasy I don't know, but I feel the undercurrent tug of it in my blood. And damn him, now I want to see it.

Vanyel straightens up and pulls Summerstorm's feather from his hair, lifting it like an offering, and Ambermoon takes it and slips it into his lover's braid. He pulls Van up into a kiss that leaves me aching with his lust, familiarity and submission. And bless Eveningstar for wrapping me in his arms and reaching down to tease me - gods, he's deft, a carnal spirit of clarity and pleasure.

Summerstorm murmurs something and I hear him drop back into the water, and he makes some curious comment to Ambermoon's lover - who replies, and unties his robe, letting that thin veil of silk trail down his body to the earth, and for a moment I can't breathe. His hair is close-cropped round his rising erection, as if intended for exactly this kind of display. His choice - or his partner's? I wish he could tell me _everything_ , revealing himself in stories as well as bared skin and compelling eyes.

But all willing, I will take what I can get. He meets my eyes warmly. I've no feather to offer him but he's looking for something purely human in me - as if asking what music I could write on his skin. Eveningstar beckons him toward us, and he slides into my lap with a satisfied smile. I don't even know his name and he's got hands on my shoulders and he's moving against me, kissing Eveningstar wetly with me between them, and I reach between our bodies to grab his lovely bared cock. There's something about its fearless vulnerability that I adore intensely. I want to suck him down to the root...and really...why not. 

When they part, I guide him down with his hands til he's on his back on the earth, and I trace my way down his body, touching every little mark that love has left on him. He leans into my touch with an unmistakeable pride that utterly confounds all moral reason, and I love it, how _proud_ he is of the bruises at his nipples, the abrasions at his ribs, the fading welts along the inside of his thighs. Tayledras don't hide things like this - they don't hide _anything_ , or have anyone to hide it _from_. I plant kisses at the base of his cock, and his stubble teasing my lips is oddly delightful. He might be the most self-assured creature I've ever touched. Nothing like Van, who's always been shy about telling me what he wants - and look at him now.

Look at him now. 

He's lying on the earth, and I can't see what Ambermoon is doing to him - but with that second sense of my lover's body I can feel all of it, the fingers toying with his entrance, the thumb touching gently under his balls. Ambermoon asks Van something I can't understand - and he freezes, I can feel him straining the edge of his nerve, and Ambermoon touches his face tenderly. Here I am merrily taking mouthfuls of his lover, and gods, I wonder how Ambermoon sees that difference, if he'd forgotten how delicate Van can be - or if Van has got worse since then. And my stomach drops at the obvious; whatever Ambermoon _thinks_ Van is like, he's wrong, Van's changed in ways he doesn't want to explain.

But Van turns to kiss him, and I hear him say "Yes" against Ambermoon's strong neck.

Ambermoon reaches for his lover's discarded robe - no - for its tie - oh gods, and Van's offering his arms in that quaint Valdemaran greeting. He holds my eyes, and I know his hunger to submit to Ambermoon's binding lust. I know it like I know my own soul. I can feel his pent up cravings slipping free as Ambermoon knots cords around his wrists, leashing him open, taking him places we've not been in years - all because his ex-lover is more a fool than I. I can't look any more. I close my eyes, trying to focus all my attention on sucking down hard on this radiant stranger, but in that other sense I am a body on my knees, feeling my wrists bound, and tied somewhere above - and I feel Van relaxing into that illusion of helpless trust, wanting and offering all his wants up to someone else.

Ambermoon slips into him and it feels so full, so perfect. A hand wrapped in his hair, pulling back hard, and I can almost feel Van's breath tighten against my own ribcage. Fingertips at his nipples, rough nails, kneading and tormenting. His desire pounds in me like a wild river. Wordless, all power and motion. I let it unmoor me as my mouth works over this beautiful man, this man whose body invites every satisfaction. The strangeness is almost wrenching me in two - I can feel everything Van wants, and sometimes he wants things I'd never ask for and it delights me to deliver them, and now I'm _not_. Someone else is fucking him hard the way he wants and he's straining in his bonds as if they were real and as if he were desperate and all I have to do is enjoy that feeling and stay between him and that fearful edge of it. I can _feel everything_. He needs me to. He couldn't have any of this if I wasn't here with him.

And the man between my lips moans low and slips his hand into my hair, curling curious fingers through it. I feel Eveningstar's slide alongside it, then his hand slips under my face, holding the base of his cock so my lips and my tonguetip caress his fingers at every downstroke. The man gasps under me, and I feel two rhythms matching inside, warm at the back of my mouth and in and out of Van's body, and I can only offer more - firmer and faster while Eveningstar kneads at him - and his release is a gift at my lips.

I let the last burst of it fall onto Eveningstar's fingers, and he licks them clean lasciviously and pulls me close to kiss me and cup my face - he's playing with my hair too, and I remember how Van struggled to say what they made of my appearance - freakish, certainly, and he said the closest he could get was 'bird from far away' - because they've no word for appreciating a man for looking foreign. I'm feeling as formless as a breath of smoke when Ambermoon comes - taut and near silent, deep in the fire of Vanyel's body, and I gasp into Eveningstar's neck as he holds me. Van. Gods, is he still alright? He feels - more than alright. Much more.

Ambermoon sits back on the earth and says something - I realise it's my name, sort-of, within the range of sounds their language makes available. He is smiling at me wickedly, gesturing to his lover as well. Oh gods, I have a good idea of what he's suggesting. Van looks back at me over his shoulder, his eyes red-edged, molten-hot silver, and for all this parade of men he looks as eager for me as ever he was. I come close and touch the reddened flesh of his wrists, bound to a swooping willow bough; he feels vulnerable, secure. I kiss him, gently until he pushes back with fervour, and his desire feels more searing than I've ever known.

Another time, I might have teased him and shamed him like this, but in this company there seems little point, so I settle behind him and guide him to me with my hands on his hips, watching him open over me with obscene ease. He draws me in and it's so hot, so slick, and it's like coming home and finding everything upside down and flung open. A fire roaring in my hearth. Ambermoon gesturing lazily to his lover.

And that shockingly lovely man who I tasted but moments ago lies down on his belly on the earth with his head between Van's knees.

Van's head tilts back against mine, and for a few seconds I stay still, just feeling him enjoy the incredible, gentle pleasure of a skilled mouth on his cock while I fill him to the hilt. He moans, and I feel him close to overcome, giving body and will to this moment, to me and Ambermoon and his lover, to lust and this fundamental kindness these men share. I move when I feel like he needs it, like we both need it, and the feeling of reaching him deep inside where he most badly need touched is so profoundly, utterly satisfying, I can barely hold on any longer, I can hold on just as long as he needs.

He cries out and I feel his whole body wring tight around my cock, and his ecstasy fills my blood like fire. The magelight blurs, and in the distance I hear myself calling his name. 

I haven't come this hard in years.

In my next sensible moment, Ambermoon's hand is stroking my face, and whatever wreck of a man he sees seems to charm him quite unduly. It's enough to remind me why I used to do things like this, back when passing fellowship for a few hours was as much as I dared ask of any man. And now I have so much I feel my tiny cup overflowing, with Van slumped across me, breathing softly into my shoulder, his complete satisfaction ringing out inside me.

 

We had a companionable time in the warm pool afterwards; it's just large enough that we could all six stretch out, with just a little foot-to-foot teasing. I learned, with Van's linguistic assistance, that his name is Frostwing, and when I tried to say the Tayledras words and savour the sounds of them on my tongue, he looked so delighted by my meagre efforts. 

Van led me back to our chamber under the king tree without lingering for more conversation - I don't think that was just in view of my barbarousness. He's turned quiet both outwardly and inside, and I keep giving him sidelong looks because I'm still not sure how we could have got here. If it was just _me_ , that would make sense. There's no god I've ever honoured like I do my body; I offer pleasures where I find them. Van, I thought didn't share my shamelessness at all, but it's not like we've much talked about it; I only watched him put his own wants last, over and over, as if they weren't worthy of voicing or living. I did my best to persuade him otherwise until that calamitous winter two years ago.

Van seems to have caught me staring this time; I think my whimsies are touching him more than usual. He looks back at me with that openness I once thought we'd lost, and I know that no matter how many people he has close to him, no matter who he's had sex with, this part of him is all my own, something no one else will ever see. But I'm fool enough that feelings alone aren't always enough for me. "Feather for your thoughts?" I ask him.

He snorts at me. "Are you speculating in local currency, _ashke_? I was thinking about how Moondance told me something that didn't make sense, and now it does." I raise an eyebrow inquiringly. "He keeps telling me to worry less."

Oh, I've only told him that weekly for two years, but now Moondance says it he'll listen? "I would find it hard to dispute that advice," is all I say.

"I know, but - I was struggling with how he'd said that my bond with you was like a bridge, and would deform if I put too much weight on it. That was hard to take. I thought he was telling me to love you less - well, now I think I understand."

"You do?"

He settles next to me and leans his head on my shoulder. "I had convinced myself that I could still enjoy myself so long as it was with you - and for you - and only you. And now I've learned that the latter part is not the case. That does feel...lighter."

I smile widely. "Only the latter part? I felt like quite a misfit there. I think you could have had fun without me."

"I wouldn't have _wanted_ to," he assures me. "Even when you were just - watching - I," and he blushes and dips his head. "I still needed you, or there wouldn't have been any point. And..." He trails off suddenly and I feel him breathing slowly and deliberately, as if trying to lift a thought up from his depths and not knowing if the strength it will take is worth it. I wait. I don't want to sway him either way. It's been getting easier for him to talk about it, but I'd never ask him to. "Stef - I was brutalised by a group of men and - it got into my mind that - because I ever thought about that -"

"That's not the same," I gasp.

"I know. _I know_ , but sometimes I feel - like I cursed myself. Moondance keeps telling me how my mind's deceiving me - he says when you're used to being able to change the world with your mind it's easy to start believing you caused or summoned things that, really, were wholly the fault of," he swallows hard, "Other people. He knows what it's like to feel like you brought the world down on yourself. He knows about recovering from your worst mistakes." I bite my lip down hard, because he doesn't need me to snap at him for the twelfth time that coercing an erection from someone doesn't make it willing, it makes it torture. His voice is impossibly steady, utterly at odds with the roiling I feel inside him. "And he's told me how important it is to see that there was nothing wrong with being yourself and wanting what you want, and your worst responses don't damn you forever. So - I'm glad to finally know that I never willed for anything but joy -"

He finally breaks and I pull him fully into my arms, offering all the love I have in me, all the gratitude and hope I have for what we share. I let him unravel by inches, taking every impulse and returning its measure in compassion - all his anguish, his anger. I take it as mine, completely, I'll share every wound and nightmare for him, because he never deserved _any of it_ and he's worth more than the world to me.

Eventually he quiets, and I wipe tears from his eyes with the corner of a sheet. Mine, too. "Thank you, _ashke_ ," he whispers, and for a moment I glow all through with his love.

I dab at his nose lightly. "You always did say a lot for Tayledras healing methods."

"I did, didn't I?" he sighs, with a shade of a smile in spite of himself. "Though I can't say that's what I had in mind."

"It was so much fun, though," I remind him. I feel his silent agreement, but I've long despaired of getting him to admit to what he finds fun. "So. Purely out of interest. How often do they do things like that here?"

"Gods, you're insatiable," he complains, and kisses me.


End file.
